


Sing, Cried The Albatross

by orphan_account



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, And Tokyo Came Tumbling Down, Community: je_squickfic, Multi, Psychopaths That Actually Make Sense, Squick, TOKIO et al crashing the party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:32:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Tokyo. The Corporation rules, the Outside is cruel and Yokoyama You hasn’t seen a soul in four hundred and forty-five days - until the hand of fate knocks on his door, and the time comes to fight back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing, Cried The Albatross

**Author's Note:**

  * For [diefleder_tey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diefleder_tey/gifts).



> For Tey. 
> 
> Thank you to my betas Liz and Bis.

  
**“I am not what I used to be.”**

**OUTSIDE**  


It isn’t as cold in December as before.

The birds seem to sing louder, but Yoko knows this is because the streets are quieter; the sun is brighter because the buildings are crumbling, weak and no longer blocking the sky - but he can’t work out why the weather is so significantly different. It’s almost like Mother Nature or God or Buddah or _whatever_ seems to understand that the Outside needs some kindness, so it provides it via extra warmth. A small consolation, but one, at least, and Yoko squints out his window at the sun and smiles shortly at nothing. 

It’s a stupid notion, but he doesn’t have much else to think about. Four hundred and forty-two days, five hours and some handful of minutes since he last saw a human being that wasn’t on patrol from New Tokyo, his handmade calendar telling him that it’s December 11th, but the ways of telling time from Before seem meaningless.

He feels hungry, so it must be around noon. _Meaningless_ , but some things like his body clock never change, and never shut off. Some things, like his brain constantly whirring and digesting, so instead of spending another unmeasurable amount of time scouring the broken landscape, he twitches the curtains shut and decides to write some more.

The tiny room is framed by notebooks. Volumes of scratchy text, all in mismatched designs, all foraged and found in his late-night expeditions to the abandoned shopping centre an hour away by foot. He doesn’t venture out as often anymore. The gunshots that rang out forty days ago, then again two nights ago - too close, so he decides lock down is the best solution at least for another hundred or so days. He’s running out of canned fish, but he knows he can survive on the barely touched vegetables, even if he doesn’t really want to.

He thinks about his mother. “You can’t survive on meat alone, Kimitaka,” she’d sigh as he pushed the greenery towards the corner of his bento box in a calculated move he’d thought she’d miss. But she didn’t, because she didn’t miss anything, and Yoko’s heart pinches as remembers her dying in his arms.

She’d missed the Water. They all had, until they started to die. One after another - friends, politicians, celebrities, conbini workers, office ladies - cast out by The Corporation like trash and he wonders how his sharp, astute mother and the rest of Japan had managed to let _this_ happen. It’s something he thinks about often, something he writes about constantly, his messy handwriting trying to reconcile what his brain cannot. His handwriting seems to take him home, the long lines of prose that no-one can edit or judge have become something like a salvation.

He just has things now. There’s a witty commentary somewhere in there about Old Japan’s love for consumerism, but Yoko doesn’t find that idea funny or new any more. Instead, he uses his time to learn about the things he’s acquired during his journeys around Old Saitama, climbing in windows and going through the empty houses of the dead, the lost and the found. His clothes are nicer than Before, his book collection sublime. He has a phonograph, pillaged from some antique shop with a price tag of ¥230,000, which is helpful when batteries were scarce and electricity non-existent. He’s gathered a pile of records - enka, pop, rock, classical, everything in between - and the irony of the world ending before he had time to learn to appreciate the fruits of it isn’t lost on Yoko. Fluent in English, Spanish and currently learning French; probably a fully-qualified electrician and a hundred other things he can’t put on a resume. A real Renaissance Man, Jack-of-all-Trades, and he suddenly needs to fill the air with distracting noise. 

He decides on _Here Are the Sonics_ , because his mood is antagonist, nostalgic. Slipping the record out of the sleeve, his fingers carefully avoiding the grooves, he moves to the phonograph and loads it up. Cranks it up, the action like a release and he smiles as the thrashing 1960’s comes to life in his quiet, dusty room.

The sun will set soon. The patrols from New Tokyo have been cutting close to his house, and he knows they suspect he’s in the area, probably because of a stray footprint or he wasn’t careful when breaking into a house. His survival skills are sublime, his ability to learn and adapt to the Outside never ceasing to surprise him, but he wasn’t perfect. 

It’s funny, because used to be sloppy, Before. Hina said lazy, and Erika had just laughed, ruffling his hair like the baby sister he supposed she’d become - and there’s that pinch in his heart again. 

How many years was it, now? He can’t remember faces because he’d been left to die Outside with nothing but the clothes on his back and a cross on his hand marking him as affected by the Water, his wallet and the photos inside no doubt burning hot in an incinerator somewhere and as lost in time as everything else. His house was inside New Tokyo, and he’d woken up in Old Saitama with no shoes and no family. 

“I’ll have a beer tonight,” he says over The Sonics howling about Strychnine. _I’ll have a lot of beers_ , and he reaches into the makeshift cold box behind his couch, cracking open the top and drinking deeply. Sitting down at his table, the angle as such that no-one could see his shadows casting from outside if he decided to risk a candle, Yoko opens his latest notebook (Doraemon on the cover, and he smirks) and begins to write. 

The knock at the door causes him to knock his beer to the floor. _Fuck_. Yoko watches it creep towards the shadows he can see moving under the doorway.

He barely moves, except to grip the shotgun tightly in his right hand.

**“Nothing of importance happened today.”**

**A061282 - NR**

“Do you know why you’re here, Citizen?”

A061282 didn’t. Maybe he did, maybe it was a fingerprint violation (in his defence, there were two days when his scanner was broken - _which_ he reported - so he couldn’t do his morning fingerprint check or scan out and into his apartment; and only that one time he’d been distracted by his rice cooker almost exploding, and last Friday when he was going to miss the shuttle) or something to do with his job, or - 

“No, Citizen. I do not know why I’m here.”

The other man - T781304, as he’d identified himself - pins him with a stare. A rather intense one, his lips pursed together like A061282 had done something spectacular to piss him off. Which, he guesses, he probably had, if being dragged out of his quarters at 2:25am without being allowed to scan out or even put on a jacket was anything to go by. “It’s about your assigned role at the Music College.”

“Oh?” Suddenly, A061282’s toes feel cold and his heart begins to beat fast. _They wouldn’t take that from me - would they?_

“What did you do Before, Citizen?” T781304 must note A061282 visibly tensing at the question, because he smiles. A toothy one, his yaeba taking A061282 by surprise - it’d been a long time since he’d seen such perfectly crooked teeth amongst the Citizens of New Tokyo - but not unkind. In fact, A061282 swears he sees the smile turn into a mischievous smirk, gone before he can work out what it means. “When an officer of the Citizen’s Group asks you this question, you are legally required to answer.”

“I - was a...I don’t really remember. I don’t really remember my life before the Water, Citizen.”

A lie. A big one. The biggest, because he remembers everything. Every detail from Before, every moment of Former Tokyo becoming New Tokyo, of his family becoming nothing but the dirt; of the pain and guilt and the fight to keep his memory conformed and his spirit unbroken. He remembers _everything_ , and it was getting harder to stop the memories from bleeding into his life, harder to keep facing the televisions and the propaganda without screaming. 

But what choice did he have, really? When he was chosen for this life, for the Water not to affect him - he was Perfect, a Citizen, as The Corporation told them on a daily basis. _“This is your gift. You are a gift. Never forget who you are.”_

A061282 remembers someone else saying that to him, as he pressed a guitar pick into his right hand - orange and yellow, to match their fast-food restaurant uniforms. “Here. As long as you have that pick, you know I’m here for you. Never forget who you are.” A smile, like the world waking up. “Team Sunshine. You and me.”

The Water took him a week later. _Never forget who you are_. But he did, because he had to, and the pick was probably burned with the rest of his things. The bonfire had been strong enough to call the Albatrosses to the sky-high walls that surrounded New Tokyo - those who’d been left for dead by the Water, only to survive - and A061282 can still hear their howls in the middle of the night. Like orcas separated from their pods; a cacophony of indignance, anger and devastation that still carried A061282 through his nights like a wave. _Never forget who you are._

 _But I did_. His teeth hurt from clenching them. _At least, they took it from me when they took all of you._

“Citizen.” T781304’s voice cuts through.

“Yes.”

“What are you family initials?”

“NR.”

“Thank you. A061282 _dash_ NR. Born eleven-oh-three-eighty-four. Your family isn’t in New Tokyo, and have been confirmed killed by the Water. Previously a music teacher for disadvantaged children in Old Tokyo.” T781304 stops and looks up. “You don’t remember your birth name, Citizen?”

“No.”

“You don’t remember your previous address?”

“No, I don’t.”

T781304 pins him with a stare. “We are taking you off your assigned position at the Music College.”

 _No._ “Citizen, if I have done something that has displeased The Corporation, I am willing to take punishment if that is required. But I feel I am doing a good job at the Music College and am at a loss to understand -”

“Do you enjoy your life in New Tokyo, Citizen?”

 _No._ “Yes.”

“We have been watching you for sometime. Your skills in dealing with the New Citizens and teaching them music are admirable.” He shifts in his seat, never breaking eye contact. “But as a Citizen of the most genetically advanced civilization on Earth requires you to be flexible and understand that, if requested, you are to move to another assignment if the Citizen’s Group and The Corporation ask you to. Do you understand, Citizen?”

 _No._ “Yes, Citizen. I understand.”

“Good.” T781304 stands abruptly and gestures for A061282 to do the same. “Citizen A061282 requested to be released into custody of Citizen’s Group Leader T781304?” He touches his ear, and only now A061282 notices the earpiece planted inside. A beat, a nod. “Thank you. Exiting interview room, on route to Training Facility B. Will be out of communication range for at least fifteen minutes, understood.” He turns to A061282 and smiles. “Let’s walk.”

The small interview room falls behind them, and T781304 leads A061282 into a dimly lit corridor. He’s quiet, and A061282 is sure he’s about to be lead to his death or something equally terrible when T781304 takes out his earpiece and finally breaks the silence.

“Ryo.”

He almost wets his pants at the word, and at the look on T781304’s face. _It’s a test. A test. Test. A061282, it’s a test._

“‘Ryo’, Citizen? Is that the name of the project I am being reassigned to?”

“Nishikido Ryo.” Another voice, from behind him, and for a moment blind panic seems to reign. _A test a test a test -_

_Subaru._

He’s sure he’s losing his mind. He’s sure he’s walked into some sort of chemically-induced state brought on by the Citizen’s Group to test his loyalty, to see whether he was worthy of whatever project they were reassigning him to. A test, complete with his co-worker - _friend_ \- from before, his bandmate who he’d spent Saturday nights smoking, drinking, writing music with; someone he’d lost and mourned and learned to keep locked away inside himself along with all the other pieces of his life Before. 

“Ryo.” Test Subaru’s talking to him again, his hair impossibly neat and his Citizen’s Group uniform carrying the identification of E170858. And, for some reason, it’s the hair that brings the whole thing back to reality for A061282, because Subaru’s hair was never short, never neat and suddenly he needs to sit down. 

“I don’t understand, Citizen.” He manages to keep his face straight, but there’s a real fear he could start crying. “What is this about, if I can ask?” 

T780413 smiles, his yaeba bringing reality closer. “You remember who you are. We know you do.”

“I was delivering orders to your superior.” Subaru - no, E170858 - blinks slowly, his expression like the best kind of memory, and A061282 closes his eyes. “At the Music College. I’d thought the Water had taken you, but there you were. Then…” he trails off, and suddenly smiles. “I heard you play our song. The one we wrote on the Shinkansen, when we were heading for that shithole gig in Tokyo, and I knew it hadn’t taken you at all.”

“So he told me about you. That you’d be good for our cause,” T780413 adds.

“C...cause? Citizens, I don’t -” He tries to choose his words carefully, just in case.

“No-one can hear you here, Ryo. This is a clean hallway. The technology here might be great, but radio waves are still radio waves, and they still have trouble penetrating several tonnes of concrete.” He sticks his hand out. “I’m Murakami Shingo. My girl and friends used to call me Hina, so you can too.”

A061282 doesn’t take his hand. “Hina? Citizen, I -”

“Stop. Ryo, we’re Dissidents. We’re here to tell you that we want you to join our cause.” T780413 - _Hina_ \- grabs him by the shoulders and forces him to look into his eyes. “Like you, I’ve known all along. The Water killed my family, my friends and my girl.” He looks almost broken, for a moment, before continuing. “Those in New Tokyo I knew Before are now mindless zombies, connected to a system in a city that the rest of the world is too scared to remember.”

“We were given the curse of remembering, but it’s our blessing, too.” Subaru circles around Hina and smiles. “We know this is hard. It took us years - by the old ways of telling time - to even work out that the other remembered. Then longer to trust each other. But there’s lots of us, Ryo.”

“There was a fault in whatever they put in the Water. How ever it worked - weeding out our genetics and assigning us to our positions...it failed, because the majority of those who remember are members of the Citizen’s Group. Those who have access to the outside, to being in the Patrolling Teams. I don’t know why, maybe our minds are too strong - but that’s how it happened, and we’re going to use that to our advantage.”

“We lost everything, but we have a chance to change that.” Subaru’s hair sits flat against his head, and it’s almost like a parody of the past. “Ryo, I need you to say your name.”

He blinks. “A061282.”

Hina sighs. “This isn’t a test. You’re with friends now, Ryo. Trust us. Say your name.”

“A061282 _dash_ NR.” And he begins to repeat it, maniacally, his mind feeling like it’s a pressure cooker or a part of a dream he’ll wake up from to The Corporation telling him how _perfect_ he is and his friends still dead and his _perfect_ breakfast full of _perfect_ nutrients waiting for him - “A061282 _dash_ NR.” - his _perfect_ uniform pressed and waiting, his _perfect_ fingerprint waiting to be scanned - _never forget who you are_ \- “A061282 _dash_ NR.” - his _perfect_ job teaching _perfect_ children - “A061282 _dash_ NR.” - before coming home to his _perfect_ apartment for his _perfect_ dinner with The Corporation singing him _perfect_ lies and lullabies from his TV - “A061282 _dash_ -”

“Maru’s an Albatross.” 

Subaru blurts it out, and the world seems to fall out from under A061282’s feet. 

“Ryo, he survived.”

_Never forget who you are, Ryo-chan._

“Nishikido Ryo. My name is Nishikido Ryo.”

  
**"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,  
And I am next of kin.”**

**THE OBSERVER**

**===== COMMUNICATION BEGIN =====**

 

_CORPORATION, THE  
SELECTED EYES ONLY_

O/TECH LL // GM--35.6328--N139.8806E

ALBATROSS THREAT CONTINGENT MOVING SOUTH TOWARDS NEW TOKYO

WO/JDGT//PTSLJTD--K8494Q

ADVI(S)E IMMEDIATELY THROUGH REGULAR CHANNELS

FV/2V/1V/SV

 

**===== COMMUNICATION END =====**

**“Ich versuche mein Weg zu finden, aber wie?”**

**OUTSIDE**  


The record has finished, the needle skipping and ticking. He imagines a clock; a clicking, hissing clock, but he doesn’t dare move to switch the phonograph off.

_Tick. Hisssss._

_Tick. Hisssss._

_Tick. Hisssss._

The shadows keep moving under the door, but never leave. 

_Tick. Hisssss._

_Tick. Hisssss._

Then -

“Give up.” A woman, from the left of the front middle window. The shadows move back slightly, joined by a new one. A gun butt, probably, and Yoko clutches his shotgun tighter.

“We didn’t think this through.” Male, followed by a sigh. Attached to the shadows. Both voices heavy with Kansai-ben, and Yoko almost thinks he’s having a heart attack. “He’s going to think we’re from New Tokyo.”

“No shit.” The woman moves away from her place near the window, her voice floating towards The Male. Yoko almost jumps out of his skin as she raps against the door, her new shadows mixing with old. “Oi. We know you’re in there. We’ve been watching you for thirty-nine days, sixteen hours and probably like, twenty-five minutes.”

“You don’t know it’s twenty-five minutes!”

“Maru. Shutup. I’m negotiating.”

“Right.” A set of the shadows pull away from under the door, followed by the man laughing. An easy sound, and one Yoko had almost forgotten. “Ask him for a cup of sugar.”

“Maru! Shut it!” She turns back into the door, and taps lightly. “Hey. We’re Albatrosses. Just like you. We’re responsible for the gunshots a month ago -”

“Forty days.”

“Maru. I _swear_ -”

Her voice lilts up at the end, angrily, and a shock of reluctant recognition hits Yoko. He knows the Woman’s voice - pulling up from a dark, forgotten part of his brain, but he’s sure he must be projecting ghosts onto the living who are currently bickering at his door. It’s loneliness finally cracking him in half, but Yoko begins to shake because he realises that he wants nothing more than the impossible to be real.

The Male’s shadows return to the door, and Yoko swallows. His brain is going too fast to process - it’s the first time that anyone had approached him, made the attempt to contact him, and for the first time in a very, very long time, he doesn’t know what the fuck to do. “I hope you’re listening, friend. So, um. I’m Maruyama Ryuhei. Formerly of Kyoto and Osaka, working in Tokyo when The Corporation came. I was cast out, dead, because of the Water, but I’m okay, now!”

“Unfortunately.” The Woman sighs, Yoko watching her shadow disappear. His fingers are starting to cramp from the ferocity he’s clutching the gun with, and he reluctantly detaches skin from metal to shake them out. _Erika? It - but you died. Everyone died._

_Except me._

_Tick. Hisssss._

“I’m travelling with three others. The girl you can hear, her name is Erika. Toda Erika. She’s not cranky all the time, but most of it.” A groan, from the woman, instantly bringing Yoko back to late Saturday nights at Cafe Ranger and the countless other times they’d spent together, laughing while teasing her, her teasing them. He wonders if she knows Hina was gone, and two heavy tears slip down Yoko’s cheeks. _Erika._

The man identified as Maruyama laughs. “And to my left, in the big tree next to your house!” He suddenly adopts a deep, game show host-like voice, and Yoko frowns to suppress a confused smile, pushing the tears from his cheeks with his arm. “It’s…Yasuda Shota!”

“Hi!” A chirpy yell echos through the silence, and a chorus of “shhhh!” rings out. “Sorry,” is the much quieter response, before the shadows disappear from under the doorway. _Survival 101_ , and he’s sure Maruyama and Erika ( _is it really her?_ because he’s learned to never trust his own ears when he hears the dead) have quickly gone back to their hiding places to ensure that no-one that could be in the surrounds heard the disruption. 

_Tick. Hisssss._

_Tick. Hisssss. Tick -_

The phonograph finally switches itself off. The silence is heavy, complete; Yoko’s brain still whirring and digesting and wondering what the fuck to do. He’s guessing Erika doesn’t know he’s the one in here, mainly because he wore a mask everytime he ventured out, meaning they’ve not seen his face and making the timeline they’d mentioned earlier ring true. Meaning the implication that they’d been watching his house since the first gunshots made it easy to deduct that _they_ were responsible for them, and could potentially bring the New Tokyo patrols closer than he wanted. 

The room smells like beer and sweat. He cannot fathom what he wants from him, other than to kill him - but why would they make it so easy for him to kill _them_? Why the introductions, the standing at the door that could easily be blown apart by the gun in his hand...he feels tired, overwhelmed, and the silence settles into his ears and the house like sand.

Nothing moving outside. Nothing moving in his house; and he wants to see Erika’s face. At least once, so Yoko crawls over, to under the side window. He’s made a small peephole there, hidden by debris to the outside eye, and he yelps when he peers through and sees a tall man with a flat nose eating salmon out of a can staring back at him. 

“Got him,” the man’s voice laconic, “well, his eyeball anyway,” and there’s a terrifying moment of chaos as suddenly Yoko has four faces grinning at him. 

“We told you we’ve been watching for a long time,” Erika smirks. Because it _is_ Erika. She seems smaller, almost too thin, with a gun bigger than she is strapped to her back and her hair cut short in a style that’s impossibly fashionable for an Albatross but entirely her. He’s observant enough to see the jagged ends of her hair, however, as if cut by blunt scissors in low light, and to see the fatigue around her bright eyes - it’s confirmation to him at least that they may be who they say they are and not some elaborate New Tokyo trap.

_Maybe._

“Can you say something to let us know you’re alive?” The Chirpy Tree Voice - Yasuda, Yoko remembers. The voice is deeper than he expects to come out of the small man, whose face is lit up with a grin that could possibly power his entire shack. Yoko doesn’t miss the crossbow slung across his shoulder, the strap covered in patches and sewn-on jewels that no doubt were worth a lot of money Before. 

“His eyeball is moving, Yasu.” Laconic Tall Man stands and moves behind them. “Moving eyeballs are usually attached to living beings.”

Yasuda groans and digs down closer to the peephole. “Thanks, Ohkura-sensei, for that lesson in obviousness. It could be a trap, you know. Detached eye in embryonic fluid suspended animation to trick us into believing he’s really peering out then BAM!” He claps his hands together, the dust picked from the ground surrounds his face in a cloud. “Shotgun blow to the back!”

Laconic Tall Man - Ohkura, Yoko assumes - laughs. “I swear, I am confiscating all those sci-fi books you found in Old Kawagoe. They’re giving you ideas.”

“Guys, shhh.” Maruyama. He turns back to the peephole. “You don’t have to let us in. We just want you to know we’re friends.” A mop of hair, a mole under his bottom lip and a streak of dirt across his cheek. Yoko’s most surprised at the blatant kindness of his face - because that’s the only way you could describe it - and he knows he’s taken aback because it’s something he’d long forgotten.

A headache twinges in his temples. _What do I do what do I do._ He watches Erika, who looks exactly the same but completely different, and it hits him like a shot. How many years has it been, since his heart felt like this? What was it called?

_Hope._

His chest hurts. He wants to talk to her about Hina. He wants to mourn him and their friends properly and their lives from Before. _I don’t want to be lonely anymore._ He takes a deep breath.

“Are you trying for high fashion with that haircut, Erichan? Or did you just cut it in the dark?”

The recognition is instant. Her eyes widen, and she’s at the front door in a second. Hammering, hammering, hammering; calling his name in confused sobs and Yoko’s crying so hard he can barely work his way through the door’s safety system that worked well protecting him but was so damn hard to open. Last lock, last pulley system -

And then she’s in his arms. Impossibly, clawing at his neck and wrapping her legs around him like a koala, pulling back to stare at him like the ghost he supposed he was. 

“You fucker. You were dead.”

Yoko smirks, and pulls her close to him. “Nah. Just hiding from your temper.”

“What on Earth is happening right now?” Yasuda gapes. 

“Fate.” Maruyama crosses his arms, and smiles.

**“It feels like years since it's been here.”**

**A061282 - NR  
CITIZEN’S GROUP PATROL 26C**

Ryo completes training, and starts running Patrols within the month. Around Old Chiba, mostly, running the Albatrosses out from under bridges and old schoolyards. It’s easy work, because there’s not many of them, and he finds himself mostly wandering around the abandoned Disneyland with S721021 - Ikuta Toma, he quickly finds out, who was deathly quiet for the first two Patrols and now can’t shut up.

He tells Ryo everything about his life Before. Everything, inclusive, and eventually begins to pull it out of Ryo, too. It feels good to talk about it, like a clock that’s being unwound, and they’re sitting in the crumbling peaks of Cinderella’s Castle when Ryo tells him about Maru.

“He’s ridiculous. He just...he sees the good in people. Even if they were bashing the crap out of them, he’d still tell them how great they were. Like, Subaru. He’s a great guy, loves everyone, but he’s still a cynic. So much so it’s fucking annoying, but Maru? Maru just...I dunno. He just doesn’t seem to want to waste time on negativity.”

Toma laughs. “He sounds almost too good to be true.”

Ryo kicks at the crumbling castle’s wall as a response, and they watch the stones fall and clatter to the ground. “Maybe.”

“And Subaru said he’d found him?”

“Yeah. Moving from Old Saitama, with a group. They’re following in the steps of an aggressive Albatross posse that The Corporation thinks could be a potential threat to the borders of New Tokyo, which is why Subaru’s Patrol is concentrating so heavily there.”

“Huh. And we’re stuck in Chiba with no action.” The wind whips around them as their radios crackle to life.

_“CPG26C, copy.”_

Ryo lifts the radio to his lips. “CPG26C, over.”

_“Back to base. You have urgent new orders. Over.”_

“Copy. CPG26C, out.” 

Toma raises his eyebrows and jumps down from his perch. “Maybe we’ll see some action after all.”

The drive back to New Tokyo is as eerily quiet as usual, the streets empty and hollow. It’s something he can never get used to; the silence rings out The Corporation's sins like a bell and the lost songs of the people who’d lived and loved and filled Old Tokyo with the beauty of humanity. 

The drive is mainly punctuated by Toma telling an intense story about his short time as an actor in a musical. Ryo’s trying to concentrate, to make the right noises at the right time, but the butterflies in his stomach crank up to full-blown birds by the time they can see the walls of New Tokyo in front of them. 

A ringing white noise follows a loud crack. It’s a foreign sound, at least one he’s not heard in a long time, and it takes Ryo a moment to realise that the sudden warmth that was oozing down his face was a fine mixture of Toma’s blood and brains. Toma’s slumped forward, his face blown off, the wind whistling through the bullet hole in the windscreen and Ryo punches the brakes to bring the car to a halt. His heart is racing, and he frantically reaches for his radio and his weapon.

“Out of the car, Citizen. Drop the radio out of the window first.”

He complies, dropping the radio to the ground with a thud. Toma’s blood is oozing on to his uniform now, scarring the Perfect, natural fibers with ugly reality, and he opens the door and exits with his hands up. Shaking like a leaf, trying his hardest not to freak out at the fact he’s covered in brains and is about to be killed in cold blood, but there’s also a serene peace about him that he knows is his subconscious understanding that inevitably comes in all shapes and sizes.

If he had to pay for the sins of The Corporation, so be it. Just let him die with his own name. 

A tiny woman is pointing a shotgun at him, her face hard. “Your name.” 

It’s like she’s heard his thoughts, and he swallows hard. “Nishikido Ryo.”

“Formerly of?” 

“Osaka. Old Osaka.”

This seems to sait her. “Move toward me slowly. Follow me, slowly. Hands up.”

They begin a slow dance. She’s walking backwards, and Ryo’s sure he could take her - but he knows the stories and what he was taught in training. She’s not alone. There’s Albatrosses watching from every vantage point, some below, up high and they were all ready to blow his brains out in a second. Take his weapon, his uniform and use him as a symbol of their growing cause, not knowing it was his cause too.

Eventually they reach a run-down shop front. They were probably in Old Ginza - he’d long lost track, but he spots the Matsuya department store sign on the ground, partially obscured by burned out cars and a sliced painting canvas bigger than a doorway. It’s a strange tableau, lit up by the full moon, and Toma’s blood begins to crack on his face. _Blood dries quickly_ , and he almost laughs at the absurdity of the thought, stepping carefully after the woman into the shop.

The door is slammed behind him and he jumps. The room is haphazard, full of upturned furniture and broken musical instruments - a string music shop, he guesses, and it takes him a moment for his eyes to refocus to the low light in the room.

“Arms down, Ryo.” Ryo sinks onto his knees in relief at the sound of Subaru’s voice. He’s not in uniform, instead in a strange mixture of khaki and traditional Japanese fabrics, his hair pushed back and a gun in his hand. The relief turns quickly to anger, and he pulls himself up, marches over and grabs Subaru by the collar in a rush of adrenaline.

“What the fuck just happened? You killed Toma? Why?!”

Subaru’s eyes are dark and unreadable. He slowly pulls Ryo’s fingers out of his collar and holds his hand briefly before dropping it. “Toma was a plant, on to us. We intercepted a communication. He had to be killed, and so did you.”

 _So did you…?_ “You’re going to kill me.”

“You’re already dead. The others are preparing a body that’s similar to yours out the back. We have about ten minutes before The Corporation requires you to check in for being delayed, so it’s best you strip your uniform quickly, man.”

“Can I stay?” The woman comes back into the room, a bowl of water and cloth in her hands, handing them to Ryo with a smile on her face. “Slowly, slowly, please. It’s been a while.”

“You’re a good shot.”

“The best.” She sticks her hand out, and Ryo puts the bowl down to take it. “Erika. The rest of the team are waiting to finish their job, so if you don’t mind undressing then cleaning up, we’d appreciate it.”

“I’ll need clothes.”

“Do you really?” She laughs at the shocked look on his face, and Ryo can’t help but blush. “It’s okay, Subaru’s organised you the latest in Albatross chic.”

His uniform comes off quickly. Too easily, like he was never meant to be wearing it anyway, and the comfortable clothes he’s given feel like heaven. “UNIQLO,” he laughs, looking at the label, and he stupidly starts to cry when Erika takes his uniform and assumedly goes to dress his dead body. _Never forget who you are,_ and he now knows he never did. 

“Death’s pretty great, isn’t it?” Subaru asks.

“You - when?”

“Yesterday. You weren’t told, but that’s standard protocol.”

“Why now?”

Subaru stands and walks to the window, his face lit up by a flash of yellow and red that Ryo guesses is his and Toma’s patrol vehicle being set alight. “We’ve waited too long. Toma being outed has pulled this all forward quickly. Probably too quickly, but what can you do?”

“What happens now?”

“We wait. They’re going to come for us, and we need to be ready.”

“And Hina?” 

“He’ll meet us later. They’ve put him back on Patrols, and he managed to sweep past earlier with the confirmation we had to take Toma out now. The Corporation is watching him closely, because this all happened on his watch. We have to keep his involvement secret from the other Albatrosses, for now. Understood?”

Ryo nods. The blaze outside colours the room in a wash akin to sunlight - it’s beautiful, and he looks at the window to catch a glimpse of his world finally being burned back to life.

There's five people, silhouetted by the fire, walking back cautiously towards the shop front, guns drawn and movements deliberate. Ryo watches them in amazement, like he’s observing one of those nature documentaries he was obsessed with as a kid, from Before. Erika, moving like a cat; a tall, handsome guy waving his hand at a shorter, colourfully dressed man who was followed by another, whose skin was so white it seemed to glow. And the last person, now stepping through the doorway -

Ryo sees his face and memories come rushing at him like an avalanche.

“Jeez, Ryo-chan. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

Nothing changes, and Ryo feels reborn as Maru wraps him into a hug.

**Quoth he, "The man hath penance done,  
And penance more will do."**

**S01**

Once upon a time, he dreamed. Big dreams, of ways that could connect the world and bring happiness to faces, make the planet a better place. Starting in Japan, expanding to Asia, America, beyond; employing what he was good at and using it to change the course of history.

Electronics were a good place to start. His partner, Ninomiya, was a technological genius, his ability to pull apart and put anything back together coupled with S01’s business and scientific mind meant they’d engineered a gold mine by the time they finished college. Growing rapidly, their products filling Japanese homes and eventually those in countries S01 barely knew existed, setting them both up for life.

But he wasn’t happy. Because he’d always knew that the Bigger Dreams, the one he’d never verbalised because he knows he’d have been locked up and the key thrown away, were the only ones that would make him content. Make him feel like he could change the world just by being born.

The country disgusted him. The television filled with ugly faces and uglier souls, the contractors whispering and wondering what they were building in S01’s backyard and why it required such specific plans and perfectionism. He paid them well, satisfied with the end result only after four and a half years, before buying his first water company like it was all just a big game of Monopoly.

“You’re a sociopath,” Nino said to him, once he’d found out what S01 had been engineering in his backyard. “This won’t work, and I won’t let you do it.”

S01 - or Sho, as he’d been called, Before - contritely conceded and agreed to stop his project. Nino didn’t even taste the change in the Water he’d been given, until he succumbed and died on the floor of S01’s lab in a confirmation that what S01 was doing was absolutely right and completely justified.

“You weren’t Perfect,” S01 - Sho - had muttered as he buried his body, before walking back into his beautiful house in Tokyo and made the first of many phone calls to many politicians. They agreed to the “vitamin supplement” in an instant, because it was good for the business they jokingly called government - Kyushu and Kansai were first, with the rest of Japan following quickly.

The television told them not to worry when people started dying. His face was comfortable, relatable and completely convincing, because they trusted his electronics and him by default. Besides, those unaffected by the Water wouldn’t remember anything soon, anyway, and he started building New Tokyo without a single solitary person making a sound. He buried friends, co-workers and those beautifully subservient politicians, employed the Perfect and built his Utopia on a pile of silent prayers and Nino’s dying face. You weren’t Perfect, and S01 made a conscious effort never, ever to drink the Water. 

The world ignored them because it was easier to. America and England had made small sounds of protest in the beginning, but nothing could stand in the way of millions of people finally living up to their country’s potential. Nothing - and he’d be damned if a group of imPerfect Albatrosses were going to get in the way of everything he’d worked so hard to give to the Japanese people. This was their gift. He was their saviour, after all, and S01 motioned for the Citizen’s Group guard to his left to let T780413 into the room.

“T780413.”

“Citizen.” T780413 bows, slightly contritely, and S01 almost orders him dead on the spot. But there were bigger secrets to uncover, more information to gather, so he plasters a smile on his face he knows is both reassuring and charming.

“I was sad to hear of the death in your ranks. E170858 was a dedicated Patrol officer, I am lead to believe.”

“Yes, Citizen. The best. And as a result, we are working overtime to assure the Albatross contingent is hunted and brought to justice."

“You’re aware of their whereabouts?”

“Correct, Citizen. We have been tracking them closely for several months and believe we located them taking shelter in a conbini in Old Shinjuku.”

The thing about liars was they always had a tell. Something that gave them away, a flick of an eyeball or a tense of a finger - T780413’s good at lying, at pretending to be a Perfect Citizen, but S01 can read him like a book. It’s small, slight and it took S01 several years to learn it, but it’s there. His tell is a jerk of the elbow, almost a twitch, to be honest. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were as intuned as S01 was, but as he learned more and more and believed T780413 less and less, S01 knows it would have been less obvious for T780413 to scream his imPerfectness from the top of Old Tokyo Tower.

He’s disgusted at T780413. He almost wants to throw up, but instead he reaches for the file placed on his desk earlier and walks toward the man he’d allowed to retain the highest position in the Citizen’s Group because - well, it was fun. Fun to watch T780413 think he was smarter than S01, to go about organising Dissident ranks and attempt a coup when the reality was that The Corporation was the _only_ truth.

Every liar has a tell. Every imPerfect man has a fault, and S01 pulls out the grainy black and white photo from the innocuous file. 

T780413 turns visibly pale at the woman’s face, but his expression doesn’t change. S01 watches, and he has to admit that maybe the Citizen’s Group leader was worthy of this cat-and-mouse game afterall. 

“This is the leader of the Albatross contingent that killed E170858. I require you to hunt her, kill her, and present her to The Corporation as an example. Do you understand, Citizen?”

“Yes, Citizen.” His jaw clenches, his face a mask of placidity.

“Your team is waiting on stand-by. I expect this completed by the end of the evening. And,” S01 turns away, then quickly back again. “Your intel is wrong. They’re in a shop front in Old Ginza, with a crew of Citizen’s Group Patrol Snipers trained on them. But I suppose you probably already knew that, didn’t you, Mr. Murakami?”

T780413’s elbow twitches. _You fool_. S01 pulls a knife from inside his jacket and rams it into T780413’s stomach.

“I suppose it would be cruel to tell you she was pregnant when the Water took her. Oh, and she’ll be dead by morning, and as the life oozes out of her, she'll be told you're the reason why."

T780413 slumps to the ground, tears pooling in his eyes and the woman’s name on his lips, his blood staining S01’s hands bright red. It’s disgusting, but necessary, and he looks away as the guards hurriedly take him away, grimacing at his hands. He waves Citizen’s Group Leader M830318 over. 

“Clean it up. Show him to the Albatrosses. Then finish the job.” He sighs, wiping his hands with the towel he’d had laid aside early in preparation. “I’ll take my bath now.”

**“We break ourselves carelessly through -”**

**OUTSIDE**

Yoko’s taken first watch, along with Maru. They’ve spotted the Citizen’s Group snipers, six in total, and spent the entire day charting their movements from various vantage points in the five-storey building. Yoko’s sure one of them is his childhood best friend, or maybe the guy he used to chat about horror movies with at Tsutaya, Before, but he’s finding it’s harder and harder to remember anything but the here and now.

He’s less lonely now. Erika sleeps beside him, even as he’s on watch; sometimes curled around him like an octopus, sometimes muttering Hina’s name in her sleep. She tells him about how she’d mailed her positive pregnancy test to Hina, in a move that was so ridiculously her, only to be taken by the Water the same night. She calls the baby “peanut”, but always stops talking as soon as she does, like she’s said too much - Yoko just holds her hand, and they manage to ride it out together. 

A silence hangs between them all, but it’s comfortable. Companionable, and Yoko hugs his gun to his chest, his eyes flicking between Sniper 2 and Sniper 6, who are doing possibly the worst job of hiding their positions he’s ever seen. It’s laughable, actually, because they could easily pick them off quickly and have a good night’s sleep, but they hold back on Subaru’s warning that there’s a bigger picture they’re yet to fully visualise. “They’re always two steps ahead, remember that,” he’d frowned, scratching his head before disappearing with Ryo into the back room they’d jokingly labelled The War Room. 

The name wasn’t far off the mark, Yoko thinks, and Sniper 2 drops an empty can of something onto the ground. _Tsk. Sloppy._

It’s hard to believe that over a month ago he’d been alone, and he remembers something he always forgets to ask.

“Were you responsible for the gunshots?”

Maru stirs from his crouched position and looks at him briefly. “Hmmm?”

“When you first started observing my place. There were gunshots, then some more about two days before you knocked on my door. Do you remember?”

“Oh!” Maru smiles, wrapping his hands around his gun and resting his chin on the butt. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

He says it so matter of factly that Yoko laughs. “‘Sorry’? Was there a reason?”

“We were following a rogue group out from Old Ibaraki. For months, actually, when we spotted you pillaging a department store and supermarket one night.”

“Excuse me, I was foraging.”

Maru grins, infectiously. “Okay, ‘foraging’. We spotted you, but so did the rogue group, and they followed you as you tracked back to your house. For days, they waited, and we waited behind them, until they made a move.”

“On me?” Yoko is floored. “On my house?”

“Yeah. But we took them out before they had the chance to get to you, and stayed on watch incase the few we missed came back. Which they did, we picked them off, then thought it best to finally make contact with you just in case there were others.”

It’s almost too much for Yoko to hear. “W-why?”

“Why what?”

“You didn’t know me.”

Maru shrugs and stares out the window. “When you’ve lost everything, you kind of start to sense that there’s still something to be found. In the places you least expect, and it’s better to take a chance than die wishing you had.”

“I could have been a serial killer.”

“Maybe. But you managed to forage a hell of a lot of canned salmon from that supermarket, and I really, really wanted you to share.”

It’s uncharacteristic, but Yoko leans over and aggressively hugs Maru. He doesn’t know how to say it, to say _thank you for saving me from the dark, for bringing the light back_ , but from the way Maru responds, he knows it’s enough. Erika stirs beside Yoko, muttering, and Ryo walks sleepily into the room, grinning at them in the dark as he made his way to the makeshift bathroom.

“I think you might have been a good luck charm, anyway,” Maru laughs, his eyes following Ryo’s shirtless form. He pulls away and slides his gun back in front of him, the colour in his cheeks obvious, even in the dark.

“You two are -”

“Friends. Good friends,” and Maru’s smile tells Yoko everything he needs to know. “Team Sunshine, we used to call ourselves. We worked at this terrible burger chain, and our uniforms were yellow and orange - you get it?”

Yoko nods.

“We’d play music with Subaru, but they were always closer when it came to that sort of stuff. I guess I always just sort of...came along, like a puppy. I’d feel like a third-wheel, and make an excuse to leave early - but he’d always call me up afterwards and tell me exactly what they did, what they talked about.” His smile is short, bittersweet. “I wasn’t jealous, but now I wish I had been, so he’d have understood I was thinking. Even though I’m not sure what _I_ was thinking.”

“The clock’s been reset, though. You still have time.”

Maru opens his mouth to respond, when they spot the shadows crossing the road. Slowly, moving between pieces of fallen signage with calculated ease. Yoko trains his gun at the figures - “two men, one injured,” he hisses - and he nudges Erika awake.

“We have company,” and she’s up in a split second, hair a mess as she runs to get the others.

“Are they approaching?” Ohkura crouches behind Yoko. “They’re approaching the damn shop!”

Maru and Yoko don’t move, their elbows touching, their guns following the men. Yasu backs against the wall close to the door, crossbow in hand, waving Subaru and Ryo into position. They can hear Erika on the floor above them, her slippered feet making _flack-flack-flack-flack_ sounds as she runs to the window.

Her scream rips through Yoko’s heart, shattering the silence. It comes at the exact moment he spots him as well - Erika screams his name, then Yoko’s, her voice fraught with shock. Yoko drops his gun onto the floor with a loud clatter. He can only watch the two men approach closer, the chaos of Erika running down the stairs and being held back from the door dulled by his own heart pounding in his ears. They’re almost upon them -

_two meters_

_one point five, one -_

The unknown Citizen drops him on the doorstep, rips his identification badge off his chest and runs. Yoko’s blood runs cold, his hands, legs, body working without his brain and he’s on his feet, running towards the door. 

It’s taking the full strength of Subaru, Ryo, Ohkura and Yasu to hold Erika back. She breaks free, as Maru follows the faceless Citizen running away, his aim never wavering; Subaru’s yelling at Yoko not to open the door, Erika’s sobs tearing him apart because they’re coming from a place he can understand - and he pulls open the door with her fingernails digging into his arm.

Hina spills into the room, his uniform coated in blood and an ugly gash in his stomach. It’s a message. A blatant one, from The Corporation, and Yoko holds Erika up as her knees give out from under her.

Yasu, Ohkura and Ryo drag Hina’s body into the middle of the room as quickly and carefully as they can. Subaru crouches beside him with a pile of rags and an unreadable face, Hina’s ragged breaths filling the silence of the room. “Hina. Hina, it’s Subaru.”

“B-baru. You look like shit.” Hina coughs as Subaru and Yasu begin to try and stop the flow of blood spilling from his stomach. It’s a fruitless task, the bandages filling red in seconds and Erika takes her breath in sharply from behind Yoko. 

Subaru laughs, his hands pressing down on Hina’s stomach, slippery with blood. “Thanks, man. I have to admit, you’ve looked better.” He looks over to Yoko, then to Erika, and shakes his head quickly. _Not yet._ “Hey, what are you doing here? How did you find us, huh?”

“The Corp...S01. He knows. Where...you are. That I know. Knew.” 

“He gave you the wrong intel.”

“He’s...we got the wrong intel the whole time. But you...Baru, you’re safe. They don’t know. But...they’re going...they’re going to win. They’re going to win before...they’ll...it’s over. We didn’t even start, but it’s over.”

It’s almost too much for him to say, but it’s enough for Subaru, and he turns to Yoko and nods. Yoko wants to usher Erika out, but he could never be that cruel; instead, he grips her hand tightly and moves to Hina’s side.

“You always sucked at keeping secrets,” Yoko sighs, trying for bravado when all he wants to do is cry. Because Hina’s close, too close to death, his face pallid and almost translucent - but he smiles weakly and closes his eyes at the sound of Yoko’s voice.

“I knew you’d never die. Idiot.”

“You know what they say.”

Hina licks his lips. “What’s that?”

“Osakans. Balls of takoyaki, right?” He begins to silently cry as Hina tries to laugh, the rest of the crew watching them - Erika especially - with a clear mixture of pity and anger when she finally slips out from behind Yoko and crouches beside Hina. Her hands are shaking as she touches him, tentatively, like he’s not real; she squeezes her eyes shut as if in pain and Yoko looks away. 

“Shin-chan?” 

Hina closes his eyes. “I’m dead already, right...Yoko? Because...I swear, I hear Erika.”

He sighs. “She’s here, you idiot.”

“Shingo.” Erika slides between Yoko and Hina, her voice breaking on the last syllable. Silently, Subaru ushes the rest of them out of the room, the sound of the Citizen’s Group Patrol alarm sirens screaming eerily. The sound seems to echo and bounce through the room, and Yoko reaches for his gun.

“What, no kiss hello?”

Erika bursts into tears, through a laugh, and she does. Kiss him, passionately, and Yoko swears he sees Hina come back to life for a moment. The scene reminds him of too many from Before, one of a billion he’d written down in the pages of his thousands of journals, left behind in Old Saitama and probably used for kindling by another bunch of Albatrosses by now. 

Maybe the notebooks didn’t matter anymore. Maybe they never did, except for in those moments he was able to change his regrets in to strings of words no one was ever going to read. Maybe the only thing that mattered was a human connection and the belief that if the world was going to end, he wasn’t going to be alone. How many years was it? And it came to this. 

_At least this time we get to say goodbye._

Erika lays down beside Hina, and he moves his body to curl into hers. The move is agony for him, physically, but his face falls into a blanket of peace, his mouth in her hair and her dress is coated in blood. 

He takes a deep breath, and it sounds like a motorboat motor coming to life.

“I never told you...I never said it. I’m...sorry. I’m so sorry. But I love you. I love you more than anything...I knew I’d find you again.”

Her tiny hands pull his face to hers, their foreheads touching. “I hate you so much. Because you left me, because...I love you too much.” Erika rubs her fingers along his face, like she’s memorising it. “Thank you for coming back to me.”

“I swear...if you smack me on the head...in the afterlife for leaving again…” he chokes a half laugh, the breath going out of him. Erika smiles wanly, pushing his hair back and kissing him on the forehead.

“You’ll get what you’re given, idiot.”

She kisses him, goodbye, and Yoko leaves before his sobbing becomes too loud.

They eventually pull his body from her arms in the mid-morning and bury him as the rain pours down. Unmarked, untrackable, and Yoko clutches the photo of the three of them he’d found pinned inside Hina’s uniform. Like a sign that Before was only coloured by Now, and he turns his eyes to the sky as they walk back to the shop front. 

They don’t stop Erika when she silently begins to load her weapons, the song of the Citizen’s Group sirens the soundtrack - instead, they line up beside her and begin to prepare their own.

**“Copper kettles, different kinds of tin.”**

**S01**

The thing about people was? They were idiots. New Tokyo fans out below him, the view from his office in The Corporation Headquarters spectacular, and he smirks at the philosophers and bad lyricists who’d mistakenly compared masses of faceless people to ants.

Ants can’t be controlled. People can, Perfect people, chosen by him to live in a society where nothing hurt. Where you could be exactly who you were meant to be, to live a beautiful life under the gentle guidance of his complete control. The Albatrosses had every right to be against it, he supposed - but he didn’t understand why they didn’t see this for what it was. New Tokyo, a Perfect land and the world’s new hope, and he signs off the order to kill the list of Dissidents they’d confirmed amongst their ranks while shaking his head sadly. 

He’s listening to Satie’s ‘Gnossiennes’. ‘No.3’, to be exact, because it’s the one that best suits his mood. One-two-one-two, hand-in-hand with the Minotaur, his glass of Henri Jayer Burgundy airing on the map that showed the location of all E170858’s planted bombs. The wine had been a gift from the President of the United States, their dinner a success and S01’s Water slowly becoming a viable commodity.

Ninomiya’s face stares at him from a frame on S01’s desk. They were embracing, in the photograph, in front of their first office building in a shitty complex in Adachi Ward. Smiling, the world ahead of them, and S01 lifts the wine to his lips.

E170858’s bombs were being defused - some reported as being as old as New Tokyo itself - along with any half-cocked plans, and Satie’s music curls around S01 in quiet triumph.

But there would be more. Dissidents, Albatrosses, those who were simply imPerfect, but they didn’t matter. Let them come, let them try, because he knew beyond faith that The Corporation would just squash them into the ground until they were nothing but a hollow memory. 

_Ants, after all._

M830318 enters the room and salutes. “It’s done.”

S01 simply nods, and smiles.

**“But that is not what ships are built for.”**

**~~A061282 - NR  
CITIZEN’S PATROL GROUP 26C~~  
NISHIKIDO RYO**

The night settles quickly. They take their positions as the sun begins to touch the ground, and no-one moves or speaks for what seems like an age. Ryo’s sandwiched between a couch and a sideboard, his eyes trained on the empty street and his ears only noticing the Citizen’s Group Sirens when they suddenly shut off.

“It’s on.” Subaru moves behind him like a shadow, as quiet as the streets now were, and points to a window to their far left, and another to the upper right. “The main snipers are there, but they’ll start tracking in from the north soon. The siren being shut off is the cue.”

“How long do we have?”

Subaru shrugs. “Less than five minutes by the old way of telling time. Probably less than three.”

“And we wait?”

“You know how this is going to go, right? I run out first, surprise them. You guys make formation like we planned, and use me to get past them. If we’re lucky, you’ll make a dent in them that will shake their confidence, at least for a while. Then…” He trails off, and laughs quietly. “If you can, try and stop them from dressing me in my Citizen’s Group uniform, okay?”

Ryo turns to him, brow furrowed in concern and his stomach sinking at mention of the standard procedure for dead Citizen’s Group members. He realises that Subaru was never planning on coming out alive, even that day they first met again in the hallway. It was Subaru to a tee, a frustrating aspect of his personality - friends first, self last; taking the quiet road until it was time for the loud one, and Ryo shakes his head. “You’re talking like it’s a suicide mission.”

“We aren’t the ones who are meant to bring The Corporation down, Ryo. We’re the collateral damage on the way - and I’m okay with that.” He sniffs, his face placid like he was telling Ryo the weather, and he pulls out a cigarette that looked like it had been in his front pocket for a millenia. “There were over thirty bombs I’d set inside the walls of New Tokyo, over - god, how many years has it been? All rigged to go off within a day of Hina being informed of my death by the Citizen’s Group. They haven’t gone off, so they’re on to us. And we’re fucked.”

Yasu overhears the conversation and butts in, angrily. “You’re giving up?”

“Not giving up. Paving the way. Because there will be more Dissidents - even if The Corporation thinks they’ve killed as many as they can, people will start waking up. That’s the one thing he didn’t count on - the Water wearing off. It is, and we started the ball rolling for the walls to come crashing down.”

“You’ve got to be kidd-”

The sound of motors rolling towards them interrupts any rebuttals, and Subaru walks out the door like he’s going to grab the morning paper, everyone else too shocked to stop him. The Citizen’s Group Patrols fall into formation quickly, like a ballet of violence, and there’s soon at least thirty-five guns squarely pointed at Subaru’s heart, head and torso.

M830318 steps forward, his gun steady. “On your knees, Citizen.”

Subaru puts his hand up. “Albatross, don’t you mean?” 

“Don’t make this harder than it already is, Citizen.”

“And who’ll make it easier in the end, M830318? Who’ll help you remember your name?”

“No-one will remember yours, E170858.”

Subaru smirks, lights the cigarette and inhales deeply. “Subaru. Shibutani Subaru, formerly of Old Osaka. And I didn’t do it for you to remember my name. _We’re_ doing it for the hope, love and glory, boys.” He reaches for his gun with the smoke dangling from his lips.

The Citizen’s Group snipers gun him down before he even gets a hold on his weapon, his chest coming apart. The “no” rips from Ryo’s lips, his legs propelling him out of the door at the same time Subaru’s knees crack against the worn bitchumen. There’s a hand at his arm, two then three; he’s yanked back inside the shop front at the same time a bullet flies past his head and embeds into the brick facade.

Erika pushes him to the floor, her face red with anger and grief. “You fucking stay there.” She signals to Ohkura, and they slip out the side door, Yasu touching Ryo on the shoulder as he moves back to the front window. The gunshots ring out, briefly, before Erika and Ohkura stumble back into the shop. “It’s too hot,” she pants, Ohkura dropping his spent ammunition on the floor and marching upstairs to a better vantage point.

“What the hell do we do now?” It’s the first time Ryo’s seen Yasu angry. He’s really angry, his hands shaking. “Where the fuck are Maru and Yoko?”

“Here,” Maru calls, stepping in from the kitchen with Yoko behind him. They’re holding a book, which Yoko places carefully in the middle of the table, and a map Ryo recognises from Subaru’s War Room. It looks suspiciously empty, void of tracks or markings. “He never had a plan. Or any plans he had were lost the moment they stepped out of New Tokyo.”

Yasu bites his lip. Ryo’s not sure if it’s to stop himself screaming, but it sure looks like it. “Meaning?”

Maru sits down next to Ryo and leans into him heavily. It’s a small, unnoticable sign of defeat, but one regardless, and the reality of the situation moves the fog of confusion out of his brain to be replaced with perfect clarity. 

“We’re going to die here. They have at least ten times the manpower, and they have us completely surrounded. Front, back, side - there’s a helicopter, coming in from the west. How they managed that with the petrol shortages Subaru mentioned, I don’t know. But I’m guessing we’re worth wasting the resources on, to make a point.”

“He’s right. They’re everywhere.” Ohkura walks back slowly into the room and presses against Yasu. Erika’s behind him, and she makes her way to Yoko’s side as searchlights and voices fill the room.

_“This is the Citizen’s Group. You are illegally existing in unapproved land. You are required to cease and desist. Turn your control over to the Citizen’s Group and The Corporation immediately or risk life severance.”_

Yasu squints against the lights and clutches Ohkura’s hand. “What do we do now?” 

“We say goodbye.” Maru stands, and Ryo knows they’re all quietly accepting what they already knew. “We say goodbye, and know that none of this was in vain. Even if it was for less than two months, I got my life back, and that’s thanks to every single one of you. And Subaru. And Hina.”

“How long do we have?” Ohkura asks. 

“Minutes. I don’t know.”

“If we’re doing this, we’re doing it together,” Erika says, proudly, her face set.

Maru nods. “We should get ready.”

Ryo watches him, as if he’s moving in slow motion. He’s proud of Maru, of the person he stepped up to be, like all the best parts of himself from Before were training him to be the selfless person standing in front of him now. Ryo doesn’t miss Maru’s hands shaking, and he reaches out to take them both in his own.

“I don’t know how to...I don’t know what to say to you.”

Maru smiles, his eyes tired. He’s everything Ryo always wanted, but never had the guts to reach out and take, the perfect punctuation point to the rambling sentence of his life. A magnet, an anchor; his hands fitting into Ryo’s perfectly and the immediacy of the situation slams into him like a tonne of bricks. 

Ryo leans forward, and kisses him. Long and hard, surprising himself by gripping the back of his head and sliding his arm around Maru’s waist. It was now or never, because he wasn’t going to die without letting him know exactly how he felt. It was selfish, maybe; reckless and embarrassing, definitely - but Ryo squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to think of anything but the here and now. 

Maru freezes. Ryo pulls back, his eyes shut and his heart clanging in his ears before sinking. _You don’t want this_ , he realises sharply, and they’re millimetres apart when Ryo finally opens his eyes. They’re sharing breath, and Maru’s lips are pulled up into an easy grin.

“You always sucked with words, Ryo-chan.” 

And now he’s kissing him. It’s aggressive, hungry and desperate, a fighting of tongues and teeth and lips that eventually gives away into something deeper. More honest, like they’re telling each other everything they couldn’t say with words, and Ryo begins to cry. He’s not sure if it’s from happiness, or for whatever could have been if they’d both not been so damn obtuse - it doesn’t matter, really. Not now, and he tightens his hold around Maru and tries to make this the moment that should have been forever. 

They break apart when Yoko clears his throat subtly beside them, making Ryo’s cheeks burn red in the low light. Maru’s face is strangely content as he takes his hands away and reaches behind him. From his back pocket he pulls out a small pouch, dusty and worn, opens it and places the item inside into Ryo’s palm.

It’s a guitar pick. A yellow and red one, and Ryo closes his fist around it tightly. The room floods with light as Maru wraps himself around Ryo, and for a moment, Ryo can see through the fear.

_Never forget who you are._

**"All is well.”**

**OUTSIDE**

It isn’t as cold in January as before.

Maybe it’s February, Yoko doesn’t know - his makeshift calendar is useless a hundred kilometres away, and he’s given up trying to tell time by the old ways. It was just something he used to fill the day, to make sense of the unintelligible, until a knock sounded at his door and his beer had fallen to the floor. 

He wonders what’s happened to his house, of the books he left behind to line the empty cell of a man the world had forgotten. He wonders if someone’s stumbled upon it, if they’re enjoying the records and clothes he’d pillaged from a hundred other people who were now nothing but lost possessions and dust, and the fear seems to slip from his heart completely when Erika hands him a box of ammunition. 

“Do we need it?”

She shrugs, busying herself with tucking it into his inside jacket pocket. _You would have been a good mother_ , he wants to say, but it’s tasteless and sappy and embarrassingly out-of-character, so he leans down and hugs her instead.

Over her shoulder, he sees Yasu and Ohkura doing the same. Yasu’s clinging to Ohkura, Ohkura to Yasu, the moment stinging of intimacy and everything left unsaid. Yoko looks away to give them the privacy they deserve, just as the lights are switched off, plunging them into absolute darkness.

They stand in heavy silence, until Maru speaks.

“It’s time.” 

They gather in the centre of the room, the moonlight illuminating them slightly and making them look like the memories they were about to become. 

No-one talks, because there’s not much to say. Yoko thinks he should crack a joke, lighten the mood - “hey, it’s like a funeral in here!” - but there’s something honest in keeping his mouth shut. 

He’d never thought he’d have the guts to become something like a revolutionary. He’d said this to Maru earlier as they searched through Subaru’s War Room and found nothing, tearing the room to shreds until they both separately came to the conclusion that this was how it was supposed to end. 

“Anything we thought about ourselves Before is long gone,” Maru had laughed, a desperate sound as he’d visibly tried to stop himself from crying at the hopelessness of their situation. “It doesn’t make sense, but it’s all we have.”

Maybe it didn’t make sense and maybe it never would. Maybe they could have worked something out, a way to save themselves if they had the time, but time was the one thing they simply didn’t have. Instead, it was what it was, so Yoko squeezes Erika’s hand and feels like maybe the end _did_ justify the means.

“I...want to say something.” Ryo looks at the ground, until Maru nudges him affectionately. 

“Go, Ryo-chan.”

“They - The Corporation, the Water - took everything from us, including our names. Hina and Subaru too - and I want to die with mine on my lips.” Ryo clears his throat. “Nishikido Ryo, from Old Osaka. Shibutani Subaru, also of Old Osaka.”

“Yasuda Shota, Old Hyogo, represent.”

“Ohkura Tadayoshi, Old Osaka.”

“Toda Erika, Old Kobe, and Murakami Shingo, Old Osaka.”

“Yokoyama Kimitaka. Osaka.” 

“Gentlemen, and lady. Maruyama Ryuhei, formerly of Old Kyoto.” He bows, barely perceptible in the low light. “It’s been a pleasure.”

They walk towards the door, slowly walking through it with their hands locked together, reminding Yoko of school trips he vaguely remembers from Before. He feels calm, because it's the perfect ending, really, and he hopes his mother is proud of him.

The Citizen's Group watches quietly, guns trained squarely on them. Yasu, Ohkura, Ryo, Maru, Erika and finally him - a single line, side-by-side, a testament to the one thing The Corporation and the Water couldn’t ever take away from them.

 _Our humanity_ , and Maru cues them to reach for their weapons with a whistle. 

The flood lights come back on for a second, and it all goes black.

**He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away  
The Albatross's blood.**

**OUTSIDE**

“Oi, Sakamoto! Be careful!”

Sakamoto waves his hand at Nagase in frustration. “I’ll only be a second, I just want to check it out.”

He steps over the threshold of the shop front, tracing his fingers over the bullet holes. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands; the glass shattered over the floor cracking under his feet as he moved through the room. The blood seems to be everywhere, painting ugly brown patterns over the walls and the floor. A massacre, and Sakamoto stops in his tracks to take it all in. 

They’d heard stories of an Albatross contingent being gunned down, but no-one had believed it. The story seemed like an unrealistically bittersweet ending to the stories that had preceded it - ones of recklessness and stupidity, of a useless fight against an unwinnable enemy, and Sakamoto and his crew had chalked them up to Robin Hood fantasies and fairy tales.

All he knew was that the Citizen’s Group patrols were more frequent, and harder. They’d had to track back from Old Katsushika, spending more than a few nights in more than a few ditches, and his back hurt. They’d been searching for a good enough shelter for what seemed like weeks, having to move on when the floodlights from the patrols had told them their time was up.

They ended up in Old Ginza, the daylight running out and their options low. Sakamoto moves through the shop front, listening to Nagase calling out to Mabo that he’d found somewhere viable - but Sakamoto doesn’t leave just yet, out of some morbid curiosity. 

The room feels hollow, like the life had been pushed out of it. It gave him the creeps, a little, as if there were too many ghosts trying to make themselves known, and he decides to check the table in the middle of the room in case there was anything of value on it before getting the fuck out of there.

The table is dirty from being left open to the elements. The weather had been especially cruel recently, hitting the land with heavy rain and wind, and Sakamoto shifts through wet papers and mud-filled cans until he finds a notebook with Doraemon on the cover. It’s like a blast from the past, making him laugh, and he flips it open to find it full of messy, scratchy handwriting.

He reads bits and pieces, the story coming to life in front of his eyes. It was the story they’d been hearing as far as Old Hokkaido, the proof it was real, and he flips to the middle of the book where it abruptly ends with one line, and eight names.

_Remember us for who we were - and for who we became._

Erika, Shota, Tadayoshi, Ryuhei, Ryo, Subaru, Shingo and Kimitaka.

\---

 

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> This version of the fic is slightly different from the original that was posted - you can read the original (sans Ryo/Maru kissing and some other structural fixes) [here](http://je-squickfic.livejournal.com/36643.html).


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